[url=http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/conservatism-dying-old-age-ill-health-and-neglect]Conservatism Is Dying[/url]

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Modern conservatism is dying. There’s still an election to be held, but conservatism as we’ve known it since Ronald Reagan is failing—ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans—“small government, low taxes, high security”—the American people are living the consequences.

We’ve seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say “shrink government.” We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say “deregulate,” and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say “low taxes,” but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

What follows is a history of these problems, and the direction people want to go instead.

_________________

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime."Honore de Balzac

"Democrats work to help people who need help. That other party, they work for people who don't need help. That's all there is to it."~Harry S. Truman

What is conservatism? really. Would you call the Christian Right, conservative? What about the Westboro Baptist Church?

To me, 'Conservative' is hobbits... let's not be hasty. Let's not commit to an unnecessary war. Let's conserve our resources. let's not make rash decisions and turn the world upside down and change everything into a new world order...

I know what conservatism used to be... folksey wisdom with the stars and stripes, apple pie and Jesus. Somehow, "Let's have an Armageddon" got thrown into the mix.

Making communism illegal (something only the USA, Germany, Italy and Indonesia have ever done) really was the act of shooting yourselves in the foot. Communism was never a threat because it requires either a majority decision or a totalitarian regime to install it. The poor within an affluent free society would never give up their dreams of wealth to be equal with all other workers and so apart from a few idealists and the radical left the communist inspired paranoia was a joke.

What making communism illegal did was to make all leftist viewpoints, socialist programs such as adequate public health, education and housing along with Unionism taboo subjects within the political forum by shifting centre several paces to the right. Anyone who even debated with a communist could not possibly stand for the presidency and that wasn't free at all.

Of Course, when McCarthy wasn't arrested and imprisoned for blackmail, illegal use of federal funds and crimes against humanity, the truth was out.

_________________Mike Gravel for President for the Unity of all States.

Ah but the truth is only known to people who think about it and those who get all their 'news' from corporate news sources never heard about it.

Communism was attacked because it was easy to paint those pictures in people's heads. Pictures of having to be like everyone else. Americans don't want to be like everyone else. And, by golly, we aren't. Do you see single payer health care here?

Anything that helps poor people especially becomes the bogeyman. Right now the cry is that Democrats are trying to push through 'the biggest tax hike in history'. And Rs go on to tell everyone it is going to take your funds for sending your children away for 'pie in the sky' programs. And I guess it is, if 'everyone' is a millionaire and especially a billionaire.

To their credit, some extremely rich people know the country is better off if we fund schools, medical care and the environment rather than allowing them to keep a larger % of their income than those who sweat for their money. Unfortunately, not enough of them do.

As long as corporations own media, people do not hear the benefits of caring about everyone in the country unless they dig the information out.

It helps if they have a bit of empathy too. Without empathy people don't have the capacity to care about their fellow man.